How many people get run over by trains per year?

Answer 1

According to Operation Lifesaver, an average of eight collisions between trains and motorists occur every day. Over 350 people are killed each year, and about 1,000 are seriously injured. A motorist is 40 times more likely to be killed or seriously injured in a collision with a train than in a collision with another motor vehicle.

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That's a curious statistic: on the face of it I'd have thought the motorist is at much higher risk of collision with another car, not with a train. However the question does not mention motorists specifically, in fact it specifically asks how many "people [are] run over by trains".

In the UK more fatalities on railways are among pedestrians, sometimes trespassing on the railway. British railways are all fenced etc as much as possible, and crossings obvious, so no-one can stray onto the track by mistake. I don't know numbers - though I know they are small. Possibly the largest and least publicised cause of delays to rail services in Britain though are not car/train or person/train collisions on level-crossings by motorist's or pedestrian's accident or misjudgement, though they do happen, but suicides.

Yes, it is a certain and quick death - and I knew two who killed themselves like that, one on the London Underground - but it is very selfish. For it is an appalling experience for the unfortunate driver, and causes no end of problems while he or she is relieved of duty to recover from the shock, the body is recovered and the train and scene are examined forensically.